Elio’s Notes: The chapter title comes from the final couplet of an untitled poem by Li Shangyin: “How can life be spent forever in vain? / Remembering the past and longing for home, we grow white-haired together.” The novel uses the first line as its title.
Candlelight flickered. The Young Elder smiled faintly. “He truly does have a bodhisattva’s heart. Even now, he still remembers to send Nüying away.”
Jingchan was silent for a long while. “Does Your Highness want someone sent to stop them?”
The Young Elder calculated the time. “It will be dawn before long. With all four gates of Jinling shut and the entire city under lockdown, even if they leave the palace, they can only hide somewhere inside the city. Let us wait. Jingchan?”
“Yes.”
“Take advantage of the chaos in the palace and send someone out to follow them all the way. When the city falls at midnight tomorrow, tell the Song army where the Queen is. Once they have the Queen, are we still afraid the Ruler will refuse to surrender?” He said it so simply, as though it were the most natural arrangement in the world. Jingchan’s face went deathly pale in the candlelight. “Your Highness… if… if he still refuses to surrender, then…”
“That is not something you should ask me. You should ask His Majesty.” The Young Elder gave a mocking laugh. If he did not intervene tomorrow and Li Yu truly set fire to himself, what could Big Brother do? Things had already come this far. What was there left to cling to?
The close ministers were summoned once more to Weiyang Hall for deliberation. It was already deep into the second half of the night. Only one day remained.
Li Yu quietly listened to the reports of reinforcements being added to the guards at each city gate. The hall above and below was filled with voices of grim resolve. He frowned slightly. “Even so, I fear… the Song army is too numerous. This is still like striking a rock with an egg.”
The chancellor led the ministers to kneel and swear that they would live and die with Jinling. The white-clad figure kept his head slightly bowed, his expression impossible to see. Beneath the pearl-light, his wrist was pale as frost, elegant beyond compare. He sighed faintly, thought for a long while, then spoke. “Two shichen. Only two shichen.”
The ministers did not understand. “What does the Ruler mean?”
“Once the Song army begins its assault, give it two shichen. If after two shichen there is no possibility whatsoever of reversing the battle, order the defenders of Jinling to stand down.”
“Ruler! Absolutely not! The Song army has no just cause, yet acts against all righteousness and destroys our state. Even if Heaven’s will cannot be defied, we would rather perish with Jinling than cling dishonorably to life!”
“Three generations of the Li family have governed this land of Jiangnan. For it all to be destroyed in a single day is Li Yu’s sin alone. One man’s guilt does not require ten thousand people to die with him. When the city falls, I will burn with the palace to atone and will never allow foreign soldiers to enter my imperial halls. But as for the soldiers and the people… they cannot endure any more slaughter. If nothing changes after two shichen, do not resist. Let the Song army enter.”
The ministers cried out in protest, but Li Yu was resolute. “Even if only a few days remain, I am still the Ruler of Jiangnan. Send my decree to the commanders defending every side of the city!”
“No matter what happens, the people are innocent. Since I am no enlightened ruler, Heaven’s will must seek a true Son of Heaven to take over.” He burst into laughter. A true Son of Heaven, a dragon whose roar shook the four wilds. So he truly had misjudged him back then.
“At dawn, close the palace gates. If anyone still wishes to leave the palace, they should go quickly.” Li Yu waved everyone away.
Weiyang Hall, once magnificent, now felt like a damp prison. He lit red sandalwood incense until its smoke drifted through the carved palace halls. It was as though he were burning his own bones and blood. For the last time, he ordered the few palace maids who had stubbornly refused to leave to light every incense burner. When the wind passed through, the pure clarity of red sandalwood filled body and heart alike, covering every trace of murderous intent.
The initial panic scattered throughout Jinling gradually settled. As the sun rose, silence fell in every direction.
Wait.
Wait until you have destroyed everything I have, then come and laugh at me. What a pity. I will not even leave you my bones.
Lunch was brought to Weiyang Hall. Several palace attendants remained at his side and repeatedly urged him to eat, but even when he forced down a little porridge, he vomited it all back up. He could no longer keep down even water or rice. The moment he swallowed anything, his stomach churned violently. His heart was knotted with grief and suffocation; how could he possibly eat? At last, helpless, Li Yu waved everything away.
Only at such a hopeless moment did people seem to remember that he was merely in his twenties, yet had to hold the realm inside his heart, while the piled bones of ten thousand people entered his dreams.
The world saw only partings and reunions, the waxing and waning of the moon, yet knew nothing of the heart’s deepest suffering, joys and griefs that could not be spoken to outsiders.
“Pile firewood outside the hall and leave it ready for nightfall. Pour oil over it.” His voice was as clear and mild as ever, cutting cleanly through the gloom of the hall. The last few palace servants accepted the order and went out to prepare for their own ending. Strangely, every one of them had stopped crying.
That man, gentle as jade and carrying the softness of night rain, had once stunned a kingdom in blue-green robes. Even now, driven to the end of the road, his elegance remained peerless, impossible to find a second time beneath Heaven.
A man like him needed only one glance to carve himself into the heart. From afar, the slightest smile from him could make it seem as though heaven and earth had been moved.
It was a terrifying kind of power, something that bewitched the human heart. Now he had wasted away until he was almost nothing but bones, frighteningly thin. Even while forcing himself to endure, the weakness in every breath could be heard. And those eyes… had become strangely pale and unfocused. Yet if he said nothing, no one dared ask. At the edge of life and death, merely being allowed to remain beside him felt enough to leave no regret in this lifetime.
Several palace servants whose names he could barely remember from ordinary days were determined to stay no matter what. He stopped trying to persuade them. Suddenly lighthearted, he softly recited, “The waves rise willingly in a thousand folds of snow, peach and plum say nothing, a whole procession of spring. One flask of wine, one fishing line, how many in this world are like you? One oar in the spring wind, one leaf of a boat, one silken line, one light hook. Flowers fill the islet, wine fills the cup, amid ten thousand acres of waves, I find my freedom.”
Truly… how many in this world were like him?
“Ruler, this servant dares to bring the qin. May I play one piece for the Ruler?”
He could not see clearly. From the voice, he guessed she was one of the younger children in the palace musicians’ troupe, her voice soft and delicate, probably not very old. To die in a sea of fire at such a splendid age… sorrow rose in Li Yu again. He sighed and stood. “Play it at Yuxiao Pavilion. I have not been there for a long time. Since these are the final moments, it would be good to return there for one last piece.”
A palace attendant came to support him lightly. He slowly left Weiyang Hall. Yuxiao Pavilion was the highest point in the palace, and today the long jade steps seemed endless. He still wore pear-blossom-white brocade. After walking for some time, he suddenly remembered something. “The Mountains-and-Rivers Brocade… come to think of it, wearing that robe today would truly be ironic. Only…”
“Does the Ruler wish someone to bring it? Liuzhu stored it carefully back then, and no one has dared touch it since.”
That year, they had searched the entire imperial city and found no one worthy of wearing that robe. Only after Han Xizai suggested that the Emperor summon the Sixth Prince back did matters change. He was imperial blood, after all. How could he simply disappear into the mountains and become a recluse? Li Congjia returned from the hills, and the instant the palace ministers saw the splendor in the way he lifted his head, the question was finally answered.
The Mountains-and-Rivers Brocade was bestowed upon the Emperor’s most beloved Sixth Prince. Truly, no one could help being convinced.
“Forget it. There is no need.” He spread his sleeves to the wind and smiled. “Now I fear even I am no longer worthy of it.” Dreamlike and unreal, the faint fragrance of red sandalwood reached them again, stirring the heart until flowers seemed to tremble within it.
That winter in Jiangnan, Zhao Kuangyin personally led five hundred thousand troops to surround Jinling, the capital of Tang.
It was not the world that had fallen into chaos. It was the human heart.
Yet from Yuxiao Pavilion in Jinling came the clear, pure sound of strings and song, carried on the wind into the palace and spreading for a hundred li without end.
“Like a candle turning in the wind, like drifting fleabane, I return in a dream. I seek the traces of the past and grieve that the people are no longer the same. Heaven makes the heart’s wish run contrary to the life one leads. The moon-waiting terrace holds only passing water; flower-shadowed towers lie beneath the slanting sun. I climb high, not caring what may further wet my robe.”
The Song soldiers heard from afar that music still drifted through the city and mocked Jinling without restraint. Zhao Kuangyin, however, felt an unease he could not explain. Just as he was trying to find some way to learn what was happening inside the city, someone ran up to report, “Your Majesty, our troops beneath the walls heard that the defenders of Jinling have received the Ruler’s decree. If, two shichen after the assault begins, the Tang army’s position has not improved, they are to abandon the defense immediately.”
Bitterness flooded Zhao Kuangyin at once. His fury had not cooled as he fought all the way here, the army pressing forward until Jinling itself lay before him. Yet now, standing outside this old land with the decisive battle about to begin, a strange darkness suddenly settled in his heart. Everything Li Yu possessed seemed already within reach, and Zhao Kuangyin abruptly wondered whether… he truly had hurt him.
He had always been such a quiet, distant figure, yet Zhao Kuangyin had insisted on forcing him to witness storms gathering across the world.
What had all this relentless pressure been for? Now that success was almost within reach, Zhao Kuangyin himself had begun to feel hollow. Things had come too far for any other path, and yet he had still sent a message urging Li Yu to surrender.
He knew perfectly well that with Li Yu’s stubborn nature, asking him to surrender would probably only make him hate Zhao Kuangyin more.
And now, in the end, Li Yu was unwilling to throw lives away meaninglessly. He was actually preparing to yield the city.
If their positions were reversed today, Zhao Kuangyin knew he was not so kindhearted a man, nor so clear-sighted that he could refuse the empty bravery of dying for pride and ignore whatever condemnation later generations might leave behind.
How much bitterness must Li Yu have swallowed before he could force himself to make such a decision?
After so much grinding struggle, the people throughout Jinling gradually grew calm. People said that although the Li rulers were not enlightened sovereigns, they had always treated their subjects with care. Now, with the state about to fall, the capital was so quiet that scarcely any crying could be heard.
Even the lowest and poorest Green Willow Lane was strangely still. A woman carried a basin out to wash clothes as usual. Passing a wall corner dripping with water, she saw Auntie Fan sitting beneath the dead plum tree and sighing. “Auntie Fan, why grieve? If you ask me, A-Shui not being here right now may be a blessing. That child has a tough fate. If the Song army gets desperate enough to massacre the city, wouldn’t he die with everyone else?”
For days Auntie Fan had been grieving because no one knew where A-Shui had gone. The neighbors had tried to console her several times, but they knew how much it hurt to lose track of her son in the middle of a national calamity, so gradually they stopped speaking of it. When death truly seemed to be at the door, everyone somehow began to feel it did not matter so much after all. They had spent their whole lives trapped in this damned alley with nowhere to go. To start wailing about life and death now would only make them despise themselves. If one was poor, then at least one ought to be poor with backbone.
Everyone continued doing the things they normally did. The drunkard nearby still wandered around clutching a wine bottle. “Auntie Fan, you ought to go pray at the temple. A-Shui has good fortune. The bodhisattva will protect him!”
“I am only afraid of that rotten temper of his. What if he has gone and offended some powerful person again? He is always determined to get ahead. How can it ever be that easy…” Auntie Fan finally could not hold back and wiped at her tears. A woman nearby heard her crying and pushed open a window, about to offer some comfort, when she suddenly cried out in astonishment. “Auntie Fan, look at this plum tree! It must be possessed! How has it grown flower buds?”
Whenever Auntie Fan had nothing else to do, she came to lean against this tree and talk to Hongxiu. Hongxiu must be lonely underground by herself. With A-Shui gone so long without news, Auntie Fan had spent each day too heartsick to pay attention to the branches. In any case, the plum tree had died years ago. How could it possibly be budding now?
She stood and tipped her head back. It was true. Tiny crimson buds clustered here and there, dazzling against the grayness of Green Willow Lane. “This… what is this…” Auntie Fan cried out as well. People with nothing to do came spilling from the surrounding houses. The plum tree at Hong’er’s home, dead for so many years, had actually put forth buds in the middle of the nation’s disaster.
Crimson as blood, like blood-filled eyes looking out from the most humble alley over all of Jinling. Fate. The human world. Old lives and old debts. Love and hatred. Two people’s joy and sorrow intertwined, north and south beneath the same sky, the rise and fall of two cities.
The sand in the hourglass slowly carried away the last of hope.
How I wish you could put everything down. I know how difficult that is. But do you know how long I have waited for you? Phoenix Terrace, Shengding House, the Qixi lantern festival by the river. You were always so pale and detached, almost immortal. If you did not wish to come, then you simply did not come. What was I supposed to do with that?
You made me feel like a fool for the first time in my life. I thought there was nothing I could not obtain, yet the thing I wanted most was always beyond my grasp.
Do you know that no one has ever dared treat Zhao Kuangyin like a fool?
Only you… one wrist enough to overturn a city, the faint fragrance of red sandalwood. Even if it left me drunk through life and dream, I would not regret it.
Kuangyin’s sword traced across the map.
I never wanted this.
He would not surrender.
Night fell once more. The evening bell of Andong Temple rang again.
Still he would not surrender.
Was it worth it?
“The iron drums atop the city walls still thunder; the golden blade within its sheath has not yet dried of blood.”
Elio’s Notes: This couplet is transmitted in Tang poetry collections under Wang Changling’s Out of the Frontier, while some collections also preserve it under Li Bai’s name as Army March. FD keeps the novel’s wording without trying to resolve the attribution dispute.
At Caishiji, bones lay scattered across the wilderness. Between broken walls and ruined ramparts were traces of the desperate fighting of soldiers from every side. The air still carried a smell of decay. A man in plain clothes walked slowly through it all, and everywhere his eyes turned was unbearable to look upon.
A fallen Tang battle flag had been driven straight into the chest of a soldier long dead. The man walked on in a daze, hesitating with every step. When he saw that scene, he suddenly reached for the flag and dropped to his knees beside the corpse.
The dead man was a young man about his own age.
Like him, a man of Jiangnan.
People said Jiangnan was beautiful. How many times in dreams did one recognize home?
Yet he had destroyed his homeland with his own hands.
For the sake of his own hatred and vengeance, he had insisted on helping that sword-browed man seize this land. In doing so, he had destroyed his own home.
Was it worth it?
At Guangliang Temple, Zhao Guangyi gathered the foreign monks who had remained hidden there. They had all entered when Li Yu expanded the Buddhist temples and openly recruited wandering monks. The Prince of Jin had risked himself by coming here, and the Song court naturally would never have allowed him to go alone. Over time, dozens of men had openly entered the Jinling palace under the guise of monks.
He had waited far too long for this day.
Big Brother had said that if things reached the point of absolute necessity, these men could at least protect him for a time. If the army truly reached the gates, he would command them from within so that inside and outside could act together.
Now Li Yu had dismissed nearly everyone from the palace. These men had become the best weapons for killing him. All they needed was for the city to fall, and they could strike Weiyang Hall by surprise.
Big Brother would not allow Li Yu to die, so Zhao Guangyi had to wait. He had to wait until the realm inside the palace dissolved into complete chaos. Then, if that pale and distant figure happened to be hacked down amid the confusion, no one could blame anyone.
Zhao Guangyi removed his monk’s robes. His hair had already grown considerably.
He slowly left Guangliang Temple first. In the end, he had deep ties to this southern kingdom. Now that matters had reached this point, even his heart could not remain entirely unmoved.
That child.
And Yunjie.
He could see neither of them now. He had failed to keep that foolish child beside him. All he could do now was hope Yunjie remained safe.
Plots and calculations. Sometimes when he thought about it, what exactly was he trying to hold in his hands? Was it really only these things he could see before him now?
Was it worth it?
Across one city, in every direction, so many people carried their own joys and sorrows. In the end, was any of it worth it?
Zhao Guangyi walked quietly through the night and lifted his head. The river of stars glittered brilliantly, yet the crimson glow at the horizon would not fade. It was scarlet as Avici Hell, as though demons were destined to roam the earth.
A pale-gray sedan chair traveled into the woods outside the nearest gate of Jinling and came quietly to a stop. Nüying and Liuzhu sat inside. Nüying had not spoken once along the way. Only now did she finally say, “Liuzhu.”
Liuzhu did not answer. She merely shook her head.
“Liuzhu, you lied to me, didn’t you?”
“Now that the Queen has already left the palace and the palace gates are shut, Liuzhu has no other choice.” She deliberately hardened her voice, though the pain inside her was almost unbearable.
Nüying abruptly stood and reached to lift the soft curtain. Her voice sharpened. “Go back to the palace!”
Piaopeng blocked the way outside the carriage. “Queen, you cannot!”
Nüying was nearly beside herself with rage. “You… you know exactly what he intends to do… You know he is alone in the palace tonight, carrying all the blood and tears of this city by himself! And yet you… you have betrayed all the grace the Ruler showed you in the past!”
Tears began falling as she spoke. Seeing that Piaopeng would not yield, Nüying could only collapse helplessly back inside the carriage. “How could you leave him there alone…”
Liuzhu could barely endure it herself, but fought desperately to keep from crying aloud. “Second Miss… do you know the one thing the Ruler cannot stop worrying about today? It is that you will remain in the palace and suffer this calamity with him. If Empress Zhaohui is watching from Heaven, how could she not blame him…” She kept smoothing Nüying’s disordered hair into place. “Second Miss is Empress Zhaohui’s own younger sister. You must remember the Empress’s pride. You must not… betray his intention…” Her voice broke. Outside the carriage, Piaopeng silently lowered the curtain.
Nüying sobbed uncontrollably. Suddenly she leaned out and looked far back toward the imperial palace. The palace grounds were dark, yet the pearl-light atop Yuxiao Pavilion still shone.
“I forgot to tell him… his eyes are bad now. He cannot even see that pearl-light anymore. He should have had those pearls taken down…” Her words came in broken fragments. Liuzhu took out a handkerchief and carefully wiped her face. “Do not cry. The Queen cannot cry so easily anymore. From now on, the Queen carries the wishes of both Empress Zhaohui and the Ruler. No matter what… you must not lose your backbone.”
Nüying clenched her teeth and forced back her tears. Piaopeng led the horse toward a more secluded place. “We cannot leave the city now. Song troops are everywhere outside. We can only wait until later in the night…”
“The pipa? My pipa…” Like a child who had lost everything, she instinctively searched for something to hold on to, groping around for the instrument. Liuzhu quickly brought it out. Fearing it might be damaged by the jolting carriage, they had packed it away before setting out. Nüying snatched up the Shaocao pipa and clutched it tightly in her arms. “Sister… Sister…” The tears remained stubbornly trapped in her eyes. She felt as though her entire self were on the verge of breaking apart, and suddenly thought of him again.
How many times had he himself forced down feelings that brought him this close to collapse?
So in the end, she had never understood him well enough.
“Nothing will happen. Everything will be all right.” Liuzhu stroked Nüying’s hair and quietly comforted her. “Empress Zhaohui will surely protect the Queen and keep you safe.” She gently let Nüying lean against her shoulder. “Close your eyes and rest for a while.” She remembered the day the Ruler had helped her find courage in silence in much the same way. Today she laid the same handkerchief across Nüying’s eyes.
“Queen, just be still and recover for a moment.” All sound around them faded away.
Outside the city, Zhao Kuangyin checked his armor once more as soldiers on every side lit their torches.
Everything that had happened today felt unreal to Nüying. It seemed only yesterday that she was still a child in green robes, laughing and playing while watching him return through the night rain with fallen red petals brushing from his clothes.
But today, he could not even see her anymore. And she had been hidden here, waiting for a chance to escape the city and begin a life of wandering.
On the day of her wedding, his voice had been cold enough to chill the heart. “Nüying, if you marry a man who has nothing, you will regret it.” What else had he been thinking then? Why did it always seem as though he understood everything, and at the same time understood nothing at all?
Nüying’s breathing gradually steadied. Liuzhu comforted her softly. “It is good that the Queen has calmed down. What were you thinking of?”
“I was thinking of when I was very little… the first time I saw him. Now he no longer wears Tianshui Blue, no longer burns red sandalwood, and even… is no longer Li Congjia… Who was it that destroyed him in the end…?”
Liuzhu shook her head.
No one knew how much time had passed. Faintly, the music from Yuxiao Pavilion had never stopped. Nüying was suddenly jolted upright by an enormous crash.
She heard the defenders shouting without pause in the distance as blazing firelight erupted on every side. “The Song army has begun the assault…”